How to Use Social Publishing for Your Business (Part 2)

The New York Times goal was to increase traffic for their publications and company website. Their DealBook account http://www.scribd.com/DealBook currently has 102,984 followers. They have uploaded 807 documents, which has been read more than 2.3 million times.

The New York Times was able to accomplish their original goal because:

People enjoyed the direct access to the source material from articles

Exclusive, hard-to-get content was offered through Scribd

Random House, Inc.

Random House, Inc. http://www.scribd.com/RHPG wanted to tap into the power of friend recommendation through word of mouth. They joined Scribd on July 30, 2008, and have since attracted 21,343 followers. They have uploaded 165 documents, which has received almost 1.66 reads.

They branded their different publishing groups on Scribd

Uploaded full-length novels, excerpts, and sneak previews

Utilized Scribd’s unique social sharing features

This strategy worked because:

Their content was broken down into specific genres, making it easy to sort for a community of readers only interested in certain topics

Material was published frequently

Used in cohort with Facebook, Twitter, and the Facebook “like” button

Lessons for the Small Business Entrepreneurs:

If you are considering using social publishing sites such as Scribd, follow the lessons that worked for big businesses:

Post fresh content and do it frequently,

Organize content into genres, and

Integrate other social media platforms.

Scribd should be treated just like other social media platforms and websites. By publishing lots of fresh material to the site, it increases the likelihood that people will see your content. Thus it should be treated similarly to your website in that every time you write a report or blogpost, it should be uploaded to Scribd immediately.

Additionally, people like convenience in their searches. By classifying papers into genres or by topic, it makes older material easier to discover. Many successful clients on Scribd have done this. In fact, Random House is a good example to follow since they publish a lot of materials on various topics.

Finally, complete social media integration should not be understated. Every time something new is posted to Scribd, it is important that it is incorporated into the other platforms—whether through posts or tweets or “like” buttons. It’s essential that all the social media services operate on the same platform and work well off of one another.